Dept. of Labor Economist: 9/11 an "Inside Job"?
Matt Welch | June 14, 2005, 12:10pm
Look who isn't buying the government's explanation for the World Trade Center collapse:
Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."
Whole Washington Times item here; link via Sploid.
David Woycechowsky | June 14, 2005, 4:22pm | #
I can see where you got confused by that reference. Let me break it down for you, real simple:
1. I don't think Israel took down the towers or even helped.
2. Still, an investigation into foreign involvement of the towers collapse could lead to unpleasant revelations that the Israeli government would not want us to dwell on.
3. Therefore, the Israeli government would be expected to oppose an investigation (as would Saudi Arabia and any other nation that would be investigated -- somehow my reference to Saudi Arabia got lost in your ellipsis).
4. Jumping to this thread, a poster said that the US would have no reason to fear an investigation.
5. i then pointed out that the US would have a reason to fear an investigation because it could upset the apple cart with one or more of our allies.
6. I don't consider this to be a conspiracy theory. I don't consider this to be an assertion that the Israeli government brought down the towers. To repeat, I don't think that.
7. As far as practical evidence that these investigations sometimes uncover unpleasant things that we should not talk about, I would point to the example of the redacted pages from that report in 2003. I think the theory there was that those pages referred to activities of the saudi Arabia government. However, that doesn't mean that the Saudi Arabian government brought down the towers. It just means that the investigation uncovered things that this friend of the US did not want disclosed. In other words, this kind of thing happens.
8. Finally: It's "Jewish people," not "Joos." Also, the Israeli government is not the Jewish people. The Jewish people are united by a common religion and live all over the world. The Israeli government is the governing body that rules Israel according to a theocratic democracy. Different things.
Slippery Pete | June 14, 2005, 4:53pm | #
David, your comprehensive moonbattiness is charming and actually a lot of fun to read. Your faith in the government to "control" what people think and say, and who they talk to, and to get to them in time, and to keep it AAALLLLLL a big secret, is touching. This doesn't jibe very well with the libertarian notion of incompetent government, but whatever. It's still fun, right?
This is the same government that leaks like a sieve to the press, on background (anonymously), every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year, for decades if not centuries, uninterrupted. You know the "curveball" information - that showed the entire US government case against Iraq was manufactured by a discredited alcoholic nicknamed Curveball by the CIA?
Leak.
You know the super-secret editing jobs an oil company lobbyist pulled on dozens of EPA reports (to cite only the most recent example)? Do you know how it is you know about that information, which was embarassing to the Bush admin and hugely damaging to oil interests?
Leak.
Pick up any national newspaper at random. Open to any page at random. Close your eyes and poke at the paper with your index finger. Now, open your eyes. I bet you a jumbo roll of Reynolds aluminum foil that you'll be pointing at an article based on a government leaks.
Every day on the news, there's a new story from a battlefield colonel or general who contradicts the administration's line that we have sufficient manpower over there. Every single day. These don't even qualify as leaks - these are people who publicly refuse to toe the line. Why can't the government control them on the single biggest issue facing it?
It is always a waste of time arguing with moonbats and foil hatters. But you really have to possess a total ignorance of how the media works to believe in any massive government conspiracies. There have been so many hugely harmful leaks to the press in the UK and the US regarding the Iraq war that I can't believe you really believe the nonsense you're spewing. If the government can't keep its own senior administration officials in line, it goddamn well can't keep Pennsylvania farmers in line. Grow up. You're choosing to believe garbage. You're choosing to fill your head with garbage. My only question is: Why?
You seem to be one of those people who believe that clean government can only occur if the "right" people get into office. But government honesty (or dishonesty) is not a function of the goodness of those in office. It is a function of institutions like the press. It is a function of the inevitable bureaucratic infighting and turf wars, which is one of the big reasons officials are constantly ratting each other out to the press. There are no mechanisms in place that would allow government "agents" to "order" farmers to keep quiet about plane wreckage, or to prevent leaks to the press. The evidence is overwhelming. You are simply choosing to ignore it. That's pathetic.
Oh, and yes. I am a government agent paid to keep you quiet. So watch your step, sparky, or I'm comin' to git ya!!!
PS: I planted bugs in your bedroom ceiling.
dhex | June 14, 2005, 5:20pm | #
"My only question is: Why?"
well...sometimes shit don't add up. everyone here has at least some of that taste in their mouth - the bitter, battery-acid backwash - every time they watch some fuckhead in a suit stand before an american flag and spout non-sequitors.
at least in my experience with a certain circle of friends...i think some of it is a need to place an understanding on the mechanics of the world - i.e. someone somewhere is in control. some of it is a very late interest in politics (mid 20s and onward) which missed out on some of the more obvious lessons of power.
some of it is cynicism, and some of it is a desire to place themselves above others - "we may be all fucked, everything's fucked, but at least we're not deluded like they are."
plus it gives a convenient excuse regarding why they don't get involved on a more physical level - volunteerism, helping the needy, political drives, local politics, etc - because it's all fucked a priori.
and some of it is a lack of any viable third choices regarding politics.
i will give my crew credit (outside of being wonderful people whom i happen to disagree with on 70% of our political discourses) for being the only people in new york city who didn't tell me the war was my fault for not voting or give me some sort of "oh, so you're one of those aids-laden baby rapers, eh?" look.
i mean, it was some sort of david icke influenced nazi illuminati thing, but still.
Joel Prusi | June 14, 2005, 8:21pm | #
David:
I'm pretty sure the engineers, when designing the World Trade Center, considered not only the impact of an airplane crash, but the intensity of the fire such an impact would cause. Has the content of aviation fuel changed in the last thirty to forty years? Does asking this question make me a conspiracy nut?
Blaming George Bush and our government may be nutty, but having doubts about the WTC collapse is not.
Aircraft impact wasn't a major design consideration for buildings prior to 9/11. I am recalling from memory here, but I think that Leslie Robertson did do some analysis due to a plane impact when designing the WTC. However, the plane used in the impact model was the 737, (the largest passenger plane at the time) which is much smaller than the 767s which struck the towers. Fuel load was not considered. The most probable scenario that the engineers considered was a plane lost in the fog, low on fuel, like the B-25 that struck the Empire State Building.
Further, a plane could certainly cause fatal damage to a tall building. (I assume this is what you're coyly hinting at by "doubts about the WTC collapse") The weight of a steel-frame building is carried by compression in the columns that span between floors. A steel
column--a structural member carrying compressive force--can fail in one of two basic ways (I'm simplifying this a whole lot):
yielding, a plateau where the steel will deflect without carrying any additional load, or
buckling, which is a state of unstable equilibrium where a tiny lateral perturbation will produce arbitrarily large lateral deflections.
A full treatment of buckling without using differential calculus, diagrams, and bending theory is difficult, but you can demonstrate it to yourself. Get a cheap yardstick (good ones take too much force to buckle) and place one end on the floor, holding it vertically. Push straight down on the other end with your open hand. After you've placed a certain amount of force on the yardstick, it will "bow out" to the side. This is buckling. The load (force from your hand) at which the yardstick buckled would be considered the
buckling load, the capacity of that yardstick for structural purposes. The yardstick, or any column, may be able to "load up" some more after buckling, but the additional load is generally small compared to the buckling load, and will appear only with large vertical deflections. If you continue to push down on the yardstick, it will eventually break (
rupture)
A perfectly straight
slender column--here, slender means a column of sufficent cross sectional area to avoid yielding--of constant cross section loaded through the
gravity axis (the line extending through the centroids of the column cross-sections) with ends free to rotate but not translate (Think of your yardstick--unless you've got it on a very slippery floor, friction will keep it in place at the bottom, but the end is still free to turn. Same thing on the end with your hand) will buckle at the critical load:
Pcr=(PI^2*E*A)/(L/r)^2
where:
PI=pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter
E=Young's modulus, also called the modulus of elasticity, a measure of how stiff the material is (I'll explain this one in more detail)
A=Cross-sectional area of the column
L=length of the column
r=radius of gyration--a property of the cross section, the 2nd moment of area divided by the cross sectional area. For a circular column, r is the square of the radius divided by 4.
This equation was published in 1757 by Leonhard Euler, and is sometimes referred to as the "Euler buckling load"
Let's look at the implications of this equation:
The critical load is proportional to Young's modulus, which can be approximated in layman's terms as the tensile load in pounds on a 1 in^2 cross-section steel bar that will double the length of that bar. For structural steel
at room temperature that load is 29 million pounds. (Of course, the bar will rupture long before reaching that load. The actual quantity is a slope on a graph of stress vs. strain, which I won't define here.) Young's modulus decreases with temperature; I couldn't find a reference for structural steel in the library in the time I was willing to spend looking, but alloy steel intended for high temperature loses about one third of its stiffness at about 1000 deg F. Assuming that this holds true for structural steel (an assumption that's iffy--it's almost certainly lower) a column would lose about a third of its strength at 1000 deg F.
The critical load is inversely proportional to the
square of the length of the column. The length of the column here is the length between brace points, which in the WTC would be between floors, since the trusses in the floor system braced the columns against buckling. The trusses were very light, and connected by a single steel pin to the columns. It's almost certain that a number of these failed under the conditions that would prevail in the fire following a plane impact. What this means is that if a floor truss failed, the columns it braces would lose 75% of their strength. (Losing the brace doubles the length of the column, and the inverse of 2 squared is 1/4).
Now, the assumptions made in this equation do not prevail in the real world. For a column tested in the lab with ends free to rotate, the Euler equation overestimates the strength. (The column isn't perfectly straight, isn't loaded perfectly through the center, and there are residual stresses from the rolling and cooling process present). For a column with ends not free to rotate, the strength can be greater, depending on how much rotational freedom is available. Practical design uses a quantity called the effective length, which is the real length between brace points multiplied by a constant. For perfect restraint at the ends, the constant is 0.5. However, removing a center brace point with both ends restrained will still halve the buckling load. (I'm eliding over how this works, because it would require a full explanation of end restraint conditions). Also note that this doesn't really apply to columns that aren't fairly long and thin--residual stresses have a big effect for stocky columns, reducing their strength considerably. Of course, if the column is stocky enough, the material just fails in yielding.
Now, what does this mean in the context of the WTC? When the planes struck (and if you don't think that planes hit the buildings, well, I can't reason you out of territory you didn't reason yourself into) they knocked out a considerable number of columns. Rule No. 1 of Structural Engineering: Forces must balance. Since the weight of the building didn't decrease, and may have increased with the weight of the plane, the columns that were left must have picked up the load previously carried by the destroyed columns. But it wouldn't be distributed equally to all the columns; the ones closer to the impact site would have picked up more load. As the fires burned, they reduced both Young's modulus and caused floors to fail, which decreased the strength of the remaining columns. Eventually, you had a situation where one column failed, dumped its load onto the next column over, which then failed, and dumped the load from itself and the first column onto the next one, etc. You can see this in the video of the collapse where the columns seem to "unzip" from the edge of the crash site. This is called
progressive failure. (Incidentally, a similar progressive failure occurred at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion only knocked out a few columns, but the load those carried were transferred to others that couldn't take it, and the chain continued until they lost a good portion of the building). Once all of the columns failed, there was nothing holding up the top part of the building, which fell onto the lower floors. Since the columns there couldn't handle that kind of load, they failed too, and this process continued down the building.
The upshot of all this is that it's certainly possible, and very probable, that the planes resulted in the destruction of the buildings. No need to posit something bizzare like explosives on the columns to explain the destruction of the WTC.
Why does it look like a controlled collapse? Because a controlled collapse works the same damn way, except that they use explosives to weaken/cut the columns instead of using a plane impact and fire.
Rick Barton | June 14, 2005, 10:00pm | #
I think a more plausible 9/11 conspiracy concerns the involvement of the Israeli government. There is a copious amount of evidence from diverse sources that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks:
"Next Door to Mohammed Atta"
Israeli agents were living in Florida and tailing the future death pilots ? until their cover was blown."
by Oliver Schr?ie Zeit
http://iraq-info.1accesshost.com/schrom.html
"Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth
Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage"
By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF
http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.03.15/news2.html
Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack
"Odigo says workers were warned of attack"
Haaretz
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77744&contrassID=/has%5C
Many more stories at; http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php
Justin Raimondo marshals the evidence of prior knowledge of the Israeli government in his columns:
http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php
(There is also a collection of other sources at this link)
And puts it all together in his book:
Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595296823/antiwarbookstore/103-7023229-1644617
Rick Barton | June 14, 2005, 10:49pm | #
The connection of the Israeli government to 9/11 is something that begs to be looked into when you combine the massive amount of evidence for Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11 with the fact that many of the lies that came out of the Pentagon's OSP justifying the Iraq war were produced by neocons including Doug Feith...
(whose office is at the center of the current Israeli government/AIPAC spy scandal) scandal:http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6068
..who had earlier written reports for the Israeli government advocating the removal of Saddam
as a first step in a process to make the Mideast more friendly to the Israeli state. Note that Wolfowitz was one of the authors, with a number of neocon biggies, of
A Clean Break a 1996 policy advisory written for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The advisory advocated the elimination of Saddam Hussein as a primary goal. Baghdad was depicted as the lynch pin in the undermining of both Iran and Syria for the good of the Israeli State. After
A Clean Break the neocons start a campaign to put forth those goals laid for the Israeli government as something America must do in its own interest. Fabrication and exaggeration of Saddam's WMD capacity are part of this campaign.
"Only ground forces can remove Saddam and his regime from power and open the way for a new post-Saddam Iraq . . ." PNAC founder Kristol wrote in a 1997 report. Kristol's Weekly Standard magazine is owned by News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox News
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/011604Leopold/011604leopold.html
One of PNAC's first goals when it was founded in 1997 was to urge Congress and the Clinton administration to support regime change in Iraq. This was before Rumsfeld was approached by the group.
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) sent this letter to President Clinton in January of 1998:
http://themoderntribune.com/letter_to_clinton_1998_war_on_iraq_project_new_american_century.htm
It's signed by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams and others. The letter argues for aggression against Iraq. They lobbied both Clinton and Gingrich to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power using military force and indict him as a "war criminal."
Unsatisfied with Clinton's response, Wolfowitz, Kristol and others from the Project for the New American Century wrote another letter on May 29, 1998, to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott:
"U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power..."
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/022003Leopold/022003leopold.html
Joel W. Prusi | June 15, 2005, 1:38am | #
David Woycechowsky,
Pushing even more tin department: what about an airplane that could emit whatever it is that a neutron bomb emits, in the form of a ray or wave instead of a bomb? That would eliminate the large explosion. As far as the radioactivity -- has anybody measured the radioactivity of the pit? Link?
A neutron bomb is a nuclear weapon that's been optimized to emit a lot more neutron radiation than a "normal" nuclear weapon, and to have a smaller blast effect (overpressure, shockwave, etc.)
Since the guy who saw the plane go over his house on Sept. 11 wasn't puking up blood or having his hair fall out in huge clumps while being interviewed, I think we can safely say that the U.S. government did not, in fact, detonate a nuclear weapon over western Pennsylvania.
passingthru:
The detailed explanation is great, but I know nothing about physics. What you say certainly makes sense, and because it makes sense, many of us won't do any further research. Furthermore, who would want to do more research if it meant ridicule? Just look at the majority of these posts!
You can't simply base the collapse solely on the realities of chemistry and physics. Human behavior and criminality have played a bigger part. What if, for example, building inspectors were "paid" to overlook building-code violations? The first time the WTC got hit, people couldn't get out of the stairwells because the doors were locked! Are we not permitted to ask these questions because science has already provided the answer?...
I'm honestly not sure what you're saying here. Human behavior and criminality played a larger part than engineering, in the sense that 9/11 was a criminal act by humans behaving. What I'm saying is that the hijacked planes are more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the WTC. I wrote it in response to what I perceived as a claim that there must be
something else that
really caused the buildings to come down, because the planes just
could not have
really done that. If I mistook your meaning, then I apologize. But your speculation about building code violations, etc., would make it
more likely that the planes would have been able to do it on their own, since the Towers would have presumably been weaker. But I don't think it's likely that code violations would have been widespread enough to really change anything one way or the other.
I got to reading through the comments and actually forgot what the post was about while writing my comment. Anyway, he claim by Mr. Reynolds in the post that started the whole thing is that the WTC was destroyed by a "controlled demolition." The kindest thing that could be said about this is that it's wildly implausible. What I'd say about it is that it's bullshit on stilts.
There's no way to hide the demolition charges, unless nobody had access to the entire
floor that was supposedly "bombed" The charges would need to be wired together, so the entire floor would be a cat's cradle.
Furthermore, the buildings clearly begin to fail at the level of the impact. I'd have to dig out Dr. Corley's FEMA report to pin down the exact floors, since the impact site was spread over about 4 of them. There is no way that you'd be able to guarantee where the plane would hit so you could place the charges ahead of time. I don't know, is Mr. Reynolds claiming that government agents used their bizzare mind powers to teleport the bombs into position after the attacks started?
SixSigma | June 15, 2005, 10:38am | #
This whole thread is very amusing and I for one want to thank David for most of it. I believe he's just screwing with everyone, but some of the responses are funny enough it doesn't really matter.
That was until other allegations were made that were far more serious.
The point I made is that the overwhelming evidence that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of 9/11 begs for further investigation.
No, it doesn't. Simply because some people have floated an idiotic premise doesn't mean investigation is needed. If Jayson Blair wrote a story about Cheney having planned the entire thing doesn't mean one would investigate.
When someone comes to you with a theory, it's perfectly acceptable practice to ask yourself what the likelyhood of the event is, and if low enough, simply dismiss it and move on (of course getting into this habit may blind you to possibilities). Staying on every single theory presented from every single source would lead one quickly to insanity. Not to mention chasing every theory would be so inefficient as to never accomplish anything. Ever hear of 80/20?
Anyway, as others have mentioned, the theory that Jews had been forewarned doesn't pass any logic test, the number one being the thousands of people (probably tens of thousands when considering family members with knowledge as well) are
still keeping it all secret, and the logistics of getting a hold of all of them would be nearly impossible. How exactly did they decide who all the Jews were that worked in the Towers? Is there also a magic phone book kept by Israel that only has Jews in it?
Given the unlikelyhood of the event you describe, and your insistance that more investigation is needed anyway, you are having an emotional response and not one of logic. I'm not sure I'd term it racism, but it's certainly not bourne out by anything rational.
M | June 15, 2005, 11:02am | #
the fact is he is helping to spread racist propaganda conspiracy theories that have their roots in anti-Semitic ideology
Please, let's not call anti-Bush theories moonbatty but anti-Israeli ones "anti-semitic ideology".
Anti-semitic remarks are annoying, but so are warnings not to discuss Israel. For crying out loud...
Yes, there would be something sinister about Israelis being warned of an attack and not warning authorities, which is quite the point. But if you look at how Israel reacted after the attacks - "now you know how we feel", "we're in this together", "we need each other", etc., it's not difficult to imagine a motive. Some Palestinians were dancing in the streets...some Israelis were quite satisfied and smug. I remember being angry at both of them in the days following the attacks.
I can't imagine Israel would "let" the attack happen, but there's enough here not to call this anti-semitic ideology.
Israel isn't exactly our best friend. No need to protect them.
Seriously, people are pushing the "don't talk like that about Israel" line waaaaayyyyy too far. It's a knee-jerk thing for some reason. Stop saying grave things like it's dangerous ground...what's dangerous about it?
It's all free speech, isn't it?
And if Israel wants to defend its reputation as a friendly nation deserving our sympathy, it can stop, you know, spying and stuff.
David: the employees who received the warnings didn't know the senders.
Rick: the recipients were in Israel and the attack was unspecified.
But back to the original story...who the hell did Bush's screening of job applicants in his first term? You'd think this kind of nuttiness would be easy to detect. Or maybe 9/11 threw this guy off his rocker....
Alan | June 15, 2005, 12:34pm | #
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/Conspiracy_theory/Intro_to_CT.html
What conspiracy theories offer their practitioners
Very briefly stated, conspiracy theories offer their practitioners at least these several advantages:
1.The safety of knowing that your idea can never be disproven. How can anyone prove that "the hidden hand" didn't do such-and-such? When you appeal to unknowable forces, you're safe.
2.A neat, tidy explanation. You can impute any powers you want to "the hidden hand," and no one can prove that you're wrong. You can tailor the conspiracy any way you have to in order to fit your evidence. The bigger and more complex the conspiracy is, the more important it must be.
3.The simple way out. Life's numerous complexities, which even distinguished scholars may never totally plumb, can be brushed aside when returning to a simpler age where "they" can be the cause.
4.The easy way out. Appealing to conspiracy saves you having to struggle with the difficulties, contradictions, and uncertainties of real evidence.
5.The security of knowing that you will never have to fix the situation. You can't contend with any forces you can't get to, right?
What generates conspiracy theories?
Here there are a great variety of answers.
1.Political disaffectation and cultural suspicion—Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the paranoid style flourishes and where it comes from.
2.Popular political interpretation: thrills for a bored subculture (reinterpretation of accepted history, deep cynicism abut contemporary politics, longing for a utopian future)—Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and power in American culture.
3.Fear and hatred of allegedly powerful groups--George Johnson, Architects of Fear: Conspiracy theories and paranoia in American politics.
4.A deep-seated need for order—Mary Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium.
5.Reaction to the intense fear that we are being controlled by powerful external forces—Timothy Melley, Empire of Conspiracy: The culture of paranoia in postwar America.
I would add scientific illiteracy and maybe the literacy of the half-educated.
Brian Courts | June 15, 2005, 5:12pm | #
Oh, and just so everyone can see what kind of propagandistic bunch of crap antiwar.com is, the article Rick refers to is indeed titled "Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack" but ONLY on antiwar.com - when you follow the link to the story it turns out to be titled "Odigo Says Workers Were Warned of Attack." But nowhere is there any mention of WTC employees, much less Israeli WTC employees. Nor does it anywhere say that Odigo had offices in the WTC. The fact is the "warning" went to two people in Israel not connected with the WTC and the article does not say otherwise despite Rick's continuing to cite it. Read it all for yourself and see! I defy anyone to show me where in the article Rick cites it claims any of the following:
Odigo had offices in the WTC
The people "warned" were in WTC (hell, even in the US for that matter)
That Israeli WTC employees were warned
Then, just to shed further light on this and to show how things get twisted by the conspiracy buffs to suit their conclusions here is some context:
On September 27 Brian McWilliams in Newsbytes reports that "Officials at instant-messaging firm Odigo confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks."
This is cited by lots of the conspiracy webpages and lots of anti-semitic ones as well, to prove what Rick is claiming (note that even this, the best they can do, does not support any of the three statements above).
But, the same Brian McWilliams reports on September 28 reports " [an Odigo Vice President] today in a telephone interview also said the warning message
did not identify the World Trade Center as the attack target." Emphasis mine.
So the more recent report after there is more time to check out the story shows that no mention of the WTC was made in this supposed "warning." But like so many conspiracy theorists, Rick selectively picks what information he wants to create the impression he wants. Clearly the facts of the situation in no way support a claim that "Israeli WTC employees" were warned, now matter how hard he tries to twist and mutilates the truth.
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